Publisher's Weekly
Italian Hit Makes Splash in Germany
The two-part Italian novel Summer, by
Elisa Sabatinelli, has sold in a two-book deal to German
publisher Blanvalet. Rights to the novel are controlled by
Rizzoli. Volume 1 (Summer: On My Skin) was published in June,
and Volume 2 (Summer: Straight to the Heart) will be released in
Italy this month. Rizzoli is comparing the novel to works by
Elizabeth Gilbert and Milena Busquets; the books are about a
woman who decides to have a carefree summer in Italy, under
less-than-carefree circumstances: knowing that breast cancer
runs in her family (the disease killed her mother) she is
awaiting the results from a breast cancer scan.
Li's 'Dark Chapter' Lands More Deals
Rights to Dark Chapter by Winnie Li, a
Taiwanese-American author based in London, have sold to Jason
Pinter of Polis Books (for U.S. and Canada) and to Lauren
Parsons at Legend Press (for U.K. and Commonwealth). Both houses
will publish in 2017. Additionally, Swedish rights have sold to
Norstedts. The book is about the rape of a 29-year-old
journalist by an Irish teenager. Barcelona based Pontas Agency
controls all rights.
Nonfiction Book on Nazis' Children
Draws Interest
Enfants de Nazis by Tania Crasnianski, a
nonfiction title controlled by French house Grasset, has sold to
seven international publishers, including Bompiani in Italy and
Skyhorse for world English rights. The book looks at the lives
of the children of top Nazi leaders, including Himmler, Göring,
Hess, Frank, Bormann, Höss, Speer, and Mengele. It examines how
these children dealt with learning about their fathers'
atrocities.
Italian Bestseller Attracts European
Pubs
Bitter Coffee by Simonetta Agnello
Hornby, which has been on bestseller lists in Italy since it was
published there in April, and sold to a number of foreign
publishers. Deals have closed with houses in Germany, Spain and
Albania. And, at press time, a deal was pending with a publisher
in Sweden. Feltrinelli published the novel in Italy and Alrerj e
Prestia Literary controls rights. Hornby is the author of
several books, and Bitter Coffee follows a 15-year-old girl who
marries a 34-year-old man. She is also grappling with the
affections of another man, who was raised by her father.
French Debut Heats Up
Gaël Faye’s novel, Petit Pays (in
English, Little Country), is taking the global marketplace by
storm. To date, the novel has sold in 14 countries, including
Piper Verlag in Germany and Hayakawa in Japan. Faye, who is
Rwandan-French, writes about the Rwandan genocide in the book;
the work is told from the perspective of a 10-year-old boy who
watches his parents' marriage, and his country, crumble. All
rights to the book, which was published in France in April, are
controlled by French house Grasset.
Chinese Award-Winner Sells to Slovenia
Cao WenXuan's 2015 Hans Christian
Andersen award winner, Bronze and Sunflower, sold to Slovenska
29 in Slovenia. The first edition of the book was published in
China in 2005 by Phoenix Juvenile and Children’s Publishing Ltd.
(which controls rights); according to Phoenix, the title has, to
date, sold 2.5 million copies in mainland China. Additionally,
foreign sales on the title have closed with houses in, among
other countries, Korea, the U.K. and Germany. The book explores
the friendship between a boy from the countryside, called
Bronze, and a girl from the city, called Sunflower.
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Publisher Weekly
The 10 Best Music Books
Doesn't the world work in mysterious ways? Publisher Weekly is
promoting an essay collection by Hanif Abdurraqib, and so they
tasked him with picking what he considers to be the ten
essential books having to do with music - pretty good circular
marketing. Certainly his selections say more about him than
about the interests of any average reader, but for what it's
worth here is what he chose and said about each.
1. Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung by Lester Bangs
I have more copies of this book of
collected essays and columns than I do of any other book. Every
page is bent, highlighted, or heavily annotated. Bangs did it
best: making criticism a conversation and leaving the door open
to his own flaws. Putting enough of himself into his criticism
to make sure people knew he was touchable, flawed. A music fan
above all else.
2. Rip It Up: The Black Experience in Rock ‘N’ Roll by Kandia
Crazy Horse
I admired this book for years when
looking for a language with which to explain the roots of black
music. Kandia Crazy Horse traces rock and roll to black music,
of course. But then takes a step further into blues, into soul,
into gospel. The book leans on black rock musicians like Lenny
Kravitz, Venetta Fields, and Slash, and it presents them
matter-of-factly. Black people playing the music they were born
into.
3. The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock
Critic by Jessica Hopper
These are essays, interviews, and
reviews–criticism spanning nearly 20 years of Hopper’s brilliant
career as a critic. But there’s also prose and edges of poetry
here, like in an open letter to Sufjan Stevens, which has my
favorite opening of all time:
4. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'N' Roll Music by
Greil Marcus
I think any book by Greil Marcus
could have been here, but I like Mystery Train for how wide it
stretches, and how easy Marcus makes his connections between
music and culture look. There are songs, and then there’s Greil
Marcus’s America, and he never fails to pull the two together
with his bare hands.
5. Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk by Legs
McNeil and Gillian McCain
This is here largely for the ride it
takes you on. The great thing about Oral Histories is that you
only have the words of the players, and nothing else. No author
coloring the narrative. Please Kill Me is kind of a whirlwind of
stories from Punk’s history from about 1975 until the early
'90s, charting a path from London to the New York scene. It is
at times comical, but largely heartbreaking–particularly in the
moments (and there are a few) when it details the mourning of
someone like Johnny Thunders, a brilliant light put out too
soon.
6. Never Mind the Bollocks: Women Rewrite Rock by Amy Raphael
I found this book in a bargain bin
at a bookstore in maybe 2002, and I needed it then, when rock in
my particular corner of the world felt like something that was
only a boys' club. The book is a series of interviews and oral
histories that read more as monologues with '90s icons like
Courtney Love, Kim Gordon, Liz Phair, and The Raincoats. Because
Raphael is so scarcely present in the interviews, the book reads
as if all of the brilliance is in the room together at once,
having some kind of rock and roll reunion.
7. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop by Jeff Chang
This portrait of early-era hip-hop
does well to consider all angles. Beyond the musicians, the book
is populated with graffiti artists, and dancers, and activists,
and even gang members. Chang not only deeply researched this
project but was unafraid to task hip-hop with what it is: a
political force–an object in the musical universe wielding a lot
of power. It’s a thorough book and a long read, but one that is
worthwhile as both an entry point to the genre and also a
constant refresher.
8. Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New
York City 2001-2011 by Lizzy Goodman
I’m partial to this book, not only
because Goodman charts a brilliant map through indie rock in New
York City after the post-9/11 music scene shifted, but also
because of the recent timing of it. A book that I can remember
living through, and don’t feel like I’m reaching back towards. I
lived this era from afar, and through her outstanding crafting
of this book, Goodman makes me feel like I was there the whole
time.
9. Trouble Boys: The True Story of the Replacements by Bob Mehr
There is a lot to get wrong when
tackling the massiveness of a large biographical project. Though
I’m not opposed to it, the writer who allows themselves to be
the center of the biography has to do it with a smart touch, and
that sometimes goes awry. Here, Mehr lets the massive amount of
research and all-new interviews (and brilliant new photos) do
the work. The Replacements were an enigma, and this book doesn’t
crack their code. But it isn’t meant to. If anything, Mehr does
the work of making them both more puzzling and more enticing.
10. Gunshots in My Cook-Up: Bits and Bites from a Hip-Hop
Caribbean Life by Selwyn Seyfu Hinds
Growing up, the Source magazine was
pretty much the only magazine that came to my home, courtesy of
my older brother’s subscription. The Source was an effective way
for me to keep up on hip-hop’s ever-changing world from the
comfort of the Midwest, where I lived. In this book, Hinds–who
served as editor-in-chief of the magazine during its '90s
heyday–writes about how he fell in love with hip-hop and the
places it took him. It is deeply candid and sometimes sharp and
bitter in its honesty, not sparing the magazine or the genre
itself. But underneath its thorough critical lens is a simple
love story: a person falling in love with music over a lifetime,
and learning to not let it go. |
